HM Land Registry will begin the process of publishing a table of conveyancing firms showing error rates from applications. The Land Registry sends out over 3,000 information requests daily when customers forget vital details or supply incorrect information. In March it will publish data which will list the top 500 conveyancers by the number of enquiries that they have raised and by volume of lodged complaints.  This data will be published quarterly thereafter.

The data will list customer names arranged alphabetically, the number of applications received from each customer and completed by The Land Registry, broken down by application types (register updates, first registrations, new leases and transfers of part), the number of requests for information raised for those application types.

Andrew Robertson, Head of Customer Policy at Land Registry stated his aim was “to provide citizens with the real picture on how well their conveyancer is performing, and to enable those same conveyancers to track their relative performance.” He added that errors ‘‘delay the conveyancing process and cost us all time and money’. The stated aim of The Land Registry is to “make conveyancing simpler, faster and cheaper for everyone”. Andrew concluded that publishing the data “supports our ambition to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data, and fulfils our business strategy target. It also supports the government’s industrial strategy, enabling closer alignment with the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendation for greater transparency in the legal sector.”

Redbrick Solutions Conveyancing Case Management can prevent errors from occurring as it has real time Land Registry e-DRS integration.  Forms and applications can be added as triggers o the workflow and are pre-populated to save valuable time and reduce the risk of errors. Forms are in a word document format for easy editing, enabling you to save your progress and return at a later date. You can access the Land Registry portal to download/upload documents and submit an application quickly and easily from within the matter.  Documents and acknowledgements are returned and saved in the document history against the relevant matter, automatically.

Rob Hailstone, chief executive of Bold Legal Group, said: “Anything that can help reduce the number of requisitions has to be a good thing. However, whether this exercise is fair on their top 500 customers remains to be seen.”